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Daniel Lynch IV

2026
Royals· LHP · throws L· 54.0 IP· 2.83 ERA· 1.02 WHIP· 218 BF
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Grade

How good he's been, and at what
Bbetter than 69% of pitchers at limiting bases
RelieverCommand Artist

Rarely walks anyone and lets the defense work.

Lynch sits right around league average

The simulator expects 0.439 bases allowed per batter faced against him — better than 69th percentile of qualified pitchers. His standout tool is HR Suppression (79th percentile). The soft spot is Strikeouts (21st percentile). Short relief stints inflate strikeout rates a touch, so read the Strikeouts spoke with that in mind.

218 batters faced · data through 2026-08-22.

How to read this chart
Each spoke is a skill estimate adjusted for sample size (not raw season stats), so farther out = better. Spokes are the metric itself; ↓ marks a rate where a LOWER number is better. Percentiles vs. 464 qualified pitchers — 100+ batters faced, starters and relievers pooled.

Plays like…

Same archetype, nearest by rate — pick one to see him side by side with Daniel Lynch IV.

Pitcher type

What kind of pitcher he is, next to the league

Pitcher type

Where he sits among qualified pitchers on the two skills that separate styles.

How to read this chart
Two skills separate pitching styles: finishing hitters without free passes (strikeout rate minus walk rate) and keeping the contact they do allow soft (hard-hit rate against). Every dot is a qualified pitcher this season; dot size tracks batters faced. Click any dot to open that pitcher's page.
 Daniel Lynch IVLeague medianPercentile
Bases per ball in play(lower = better).441.52869th
Walk rate(lower = better)8%9%69th
Strikeout rate(higher = better)20%22%21st

100th percentile = best in MLB.

Arsenal

What he throws, and what it does

Daniel Lynch IV mixes his sinker (30%) and changeup (24%). His best pitch has been the changeup, saving 3.8 bases per 100 thrown vs average.

Pitch mix & swing-and-miss

+19 bases better than a replacement arm this season

allowed 93 bases vs a replacement arm's 112 over the same batters faced

Replacement level is per-batter and can't be split by pitch type, so the bars below use league average.

All pitches

11.5 bases saved vs league average, across 794 pitches — 1.4 per 100.

Sinker
30%
94.3 mph · LHP median 93.1
15% whiffs · Lg median 13%
saved 3.7 per 1008.8 total
Changeup
24%
85.9 mph · LHP median 85.0
29% whiffs · Lg median 30%
saved 3.8 per 1007.2 total
Slider
23%
87.3 mph · LHP median 85.8
42% whiffs · Lg median 33%
saved 2.0 per 1003.6 total
Four-Seam Fastball
15%
94.9 mph · LHP median 93.6
13% whiffs · Lg median 21%
cost 7.0 per 1008.5 total
Knuckle Curve
7%
81.6 mph · LHP median 82.1
saved 0.7 per 1000.4 total
How to read this chart
What they throw, how hard, and what misses bats — from pitch tracking, regular season only.

Mix by batter side

Compared with the league, his sinker tilts 20 points more toward lefties.

Sinker
52% vs LHH · LHP median 38%
16% vs RHH · LHP median 22%
Slider
42% vs LHH · LHP median 33%
10% vs RHH · LHP median 19%
How to read this chart
How the mix shifts against lefty and righty bats. Medians are among left-handed pitchers who throw that pitch at least 3% of the time — between 86 and 103 of them, depending on the pitch. Overall results by batter side are under Platoon splits.

Daniel Lynch IV's pitch movement, 2026

None of his pitches have moved from their early-season shape.

Compared with his own earlier outings this season, not with other pitchers — and after taking out the drift every pitch in the league shows through midsummer.

Daniel Lynch IV's pitch movement, 2026012-12012in← glove sidearm side →more risemore drop
SinkerSI
Rise 8.9 in
+0.6 vs Lg median
Break 15.6 in
+0.3 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
ChangeupCH
Rise 3.0 in
−1.0 vs Lg median
Break 13.0 in
−1.1 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
SliderSL
Rise 3.2 in
+1.4 vs Lg median
Break −2.3 in
+1.4 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
Four-Seam FastballFF
Rise 15.0 in
−0.7 vs Lg median
Break 8.1 in
+0.5 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
Knuckle CurveKC
Rise −0.5 in
+9.4 vs Lg median
Break −2.6 in
+3.4 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
Early season → nowLg medianCurrent-dot uncertainty
How to read this chart
Each dot is a pitch's current shape — horizontal break (arm side vs. glove side) by induced vertical break (rise vs. drop). Both axes are in inches of break. The trail runs from this season's earliest tracked outings — the faint, thin end — up to today's solid dot; a trail with only a few segments just means fewer tracked outings. The soft halo around each dot is how far that dot could sit off on its own, just from ordinary outing-to-outing wobble. Don't read a long trail as proof on its own that a pitch changed. Every pitch in baseball loses a little break through midsummer and gets it back by September — the same shift two full seasons back agree on — and the trail shows that league-wide seasonal swing alongside whatever this pitcher did himself. The sentence at the top of this card has the league's share taken out, so it can read “has not moved” above a trail that looks long. That is the two marks measuring different things, not a mistake. A pitch counts as changed only once it sits at least two inches from its own early-season shape — a verdict about this pitcher against himself, never a comparison with anyone else. League median: the small hollow ring marks it, on the same two measurements. Where it sits far from a pitch's dot, a line joins the two — and on a wider screen the ring carries that pitch's code as well — so a distant ring is never orphaned; where it sits close, neither is drawn, because the pairing is already obvious. League median is missing entirely for a pitch marked *: too few pitchers throw it for one to be worth setting, so it is plotted without a reference ring. For the exact dates a pitch changed, see the by-appearance chart below.

By appearance

How the stuff has held up outing to outing

One point per outing — how his velocity, movement, and pitch mix have moved across the season, with league context for scale. Each pitch keeps the same color in every chart.

Platoon splits

How he fares against lefties and righties

Platoon splits (EB/PA allowed)

Better vs LHB than vs RHB by 0.040 EB/PA allowed (modeled).

50% probable range: +0.032 to +0.050

vs LHB95 PA0.408

vs LHB: shrunk estimate 0.408 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.387 to 0.428, based on 95 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.324 EB/PA. League median vs LHB: 0.454 EB/PA.

Raw vs LHB rate (0.324) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

vs RHB123 PA0.448

vs RHB: shrunk estimate 0.448 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.428 to 0.468, based on 123 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.458 EB/PA. League median vs RHB: 0.440 EB/PA.

0.3780.4030.4280.4530.477
← betterworse →
Below league medianAbove50% probable rangeHis raw rateMiddle half of the league

About the typical split for a lefty arm (median 0.039). Against righty bats he allows more than the league median — a genuine platoon vulnerability.

How to read this chart
  • Tap or hover any mark for its number, or tab to a row for all of them.
  • His raw rate is the unshrunk number against that side — small samples make it noisy, which is why the model pulls his estimate toward a more trustworthy value.
  • Middle half of the league” is the 25th–75th percentile of all pitchers against that side.
  • These are bases allowed, so lower is better. Weighted by how often he faces each side, the two splits average back to his modeled overall EB/PA allowed — not the xEB/PA headline at the top of the page, which folds in strikeouts and walks differently.
  • Shrunk splits beat raw splits on held-out seasons, most decisively at low batters-faced counts (relievers especially), and converge with the raw numbers as exposure builds.

Contact allowed

What hitters do when they connect

Batters go to the pull side off him most often, and that's where the hardest contact comes from.

Pull and oppo are relative to each batter's stance, so this pools all the hitters he faced.

Batted balls allowed

Where every ball hit off Daniel Lynch IV landed this season.
How to read this chart
Dot color is estimated bases (EB) — what the contact was worth, regardless of what the defense did with it. So a dark hollow ring in the outfield is a crushed ball his defense ran down. Tap or hover a dot or a row to link the two, and use the ▶ links to watch a play on Baseball Savant.

Earned vs. actual

Batters have been credited about 7 fewer bases than their contact off Daniel Lynch IV earned — his results have run fortunate so far.

Earned off his contact allowed76
Actually credited to batters69

over 172 balls in play · walks and strikeouts excluded on both sides

How to read this chart
Every ball in play is worth the bases its exit velocity and direction usually earn. Comparing those earned bases with the bases batters were actually credited shows whether his results have been lucky, unlucky, or fair.

ERA 2.83 · WHIP 1.02 · BABIP against 0.232 (Lg median 0.286)

Times through order

What happens the third time they see him

Best games

His biggest outings this year

Best games

His best outings this season by bases saved vs a replacement arm.

Multi-season trends · Daniel Lynch IV

HR allowed% down, BB% down, K% up, Barrel% against down, Hard-hit% against down, FB% against up, Pull% against up vs last season

Actual rates — what happened on the field, season by season.